1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to the general field of fishing lures and particularly to an arrangement designed to resist the fish throwing the hook and provide excellent hook penetration into the attacking fish.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The concept of allowing a fish hook on a lure to move longitudinally and rearwardly of the lure under fish attack, and to then provide structure to abruptly stop the moving hook has been taught in many prior art lure arrangements. The theory is that the abrupt stop induces better hook penetration and therefor improves fishing success. Moving hook structures are shown, for example, in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,196,555 and 2,588,400, dated Apr. 9, 1940 and Mar. 11, 1952, respectively. Typically, these devices employed a spring clip to engage the eye of a hook while the hook was in retracted position in relation to the lure. The striking fish would cause the eye to escape from under the spring clip and the hook was free to move its full stem length, usually through a small opening until the hook eye engages the small opening structure, which abruptly halts hook movement inducing hook penetration. The problem with these units is that the fish could frequently dislodge the hook as the hook stem moved through the small opening. The hook may be thrown by the fish before the abrupt stop occured.
A unique feature of the herein inventive lure is a novel, motion resistive moving hook structure coupled with an abrupt stop device to aid fish penetration. The hook and cooperating structure is such that a stem or shaft memory, spring tension is present throughout virtually the full longitudinal movement of the hook. This creates an increasing resistance to hook movement. With no free hook movement the attacking fish is impeded from the throwing the hook during said movement. The last and very short increment of hook movement is free, however, ie., without resistance. This free movement is only long enough to increase the hook velocity and impact upon abrupt stop and thereby increase the effectiveness of hook penetration.
Another feature of the movable hook is, that in its retracted position, the hook stem and the eye thereof is a positioned in a central cavity in the lure body. Specifically, the hook is a two hook design having a single eyelet and two generally parallel stems projecting from the single eyelet to the respective hooks. A vertical member or stop is placed adjacent the outer opening of the central cavity and is slightly thicker than the space between the generally parallel hook stems so that with the stems telescopically received in the central cavity the stems are in spring pressured engagement with the vertical stop member. It is the spring pressure thus created that resists, yet allows, movement of the hooks out of the cavity in the lure body. As the hook is resistively removed from the cavity during fish attack, the hook eyelet is moved into embracing engagement with the vertical stop member which abruptly halts hook movement and aiding in hoop penetration. Also the fact that the vertical stop member is wider than the space between the parallel stems, induces a horizontal seperating movement between the two hooks during resistive movement of the hooks from the cavity.
It will be apparent to skilled fisherman that the lure herein disclosed provides unique functional features and has as its general object greatly improved fishing efficiency.
Other advantages and features of the invention will become apparent in the course of the following description of a presently preferred embodiment of the invention.